Serving time

 In a restaurant

I want lip service, I said

And she kissed me

The waitress I mean

It was like she had missed me

"No I mean pay me attention at least"

It is like this fifty-fifty tension

Has ceased

After that she brought steak and peas

I said you have made a mistake and

"what on earth are these?"

"When I asked for peace", I expected your speech

For you look like Miss World to me

She said fella, you've got one hell of a

Lot of nerve

To speak to me in that way

Where is your reserve?

I said I made it already doll

Over the telephone last night

I booked a table for ourselves

Now come and sit with me in candlelight

I don't know, she said, the boss is kind of testy

I said I know he has an extra ball

But that just makes him pesty

No I mean he is the king around here

You gotta perform like some kind of a jester

If you wanna sit in his hall

So I gave her a tip

And she went on her way

Swinging her tush in that playful way

But it was only the iceberg as they say

And the cold ran into her finger bone

I was sitting alone, now alone, quite alone

I thought of my wife whom I'd left at home

My other half, the better part of me

So I invited her out, out of memory

As her ghost walked in, it passed through the wall

And they all turned their heads who were

sittting in the hall

And they said the dead have answered your call

But aren't you afraid of what's out there?

I said oh no not me, it was funny in this

I wanted to be free, but couldn't quite shift

The shadow following me

I couldn't quite lift the chip from my shoulder

The waitress came up and said do you want fish with that?

I said that would be my wish and then she brought a cat

I said I thought I asked you for a dog,

She said but this one had whiskers and it looks like a frog

Well in that case I'll try it I said with a smile

But then it jumped off my plate, down the road a country mile

I guess I'll go hungry, I told her then

She said don't give up, she still had her pen

She said tell me your order and I'll write

It down in my book

When I said sausage and mash

She gave me a quick look

That said don't you know this is a restaurant

I said I know but that's what I want

So when she went away then, I slipped out the door

And I never have been back to that place anymore

Just

 I'm asking you for some news

From the foreign front

Give me the cues that I may use

To decide what I really want

I cannot tell, if this living hell

Is sound or fury or noise

But warning bells, begin their knell

Like psychological joys

When all is drifting down the river

And salmon are leaping free

And carp play harps, in musical

Tarps of mysterious melody

And trout make noise of gurgling boys

And fields of ripe corn

A million miles from where I am

And where I once was born

I run the gauntlet of this life

Up the torrid stream

And every footstep that falls

Is another vaunted dream

But if you call me Noah

Or if call me steam

I will flood you

With a rainbow

Of my vaulted beam

All the rocks are cold

All the trees are dripping

Sometimes the wild seems so bold

While I can feel less gripping

And the battle that must be fought

Is one against ourselves 

But whether it needs fighting

Is a decision made by elves

They are voices calling

Take it easy

Go to sleep

And I am willing to oblige them

As I crawl out of the deep

Life is short

 Life is short

You got to do what you can

Life is short 

Don't follow a plan

Life is short

Stick it to the man

Life is, Life is short

Life is short living in the fast lane

Life is short giving so much pain

Life is short and I say it again

Life is, life is short

Life is short living the dream

Life is short wanna make you scream

Life is short if you know what I mean

Life is, Life is short

Life is short when the shit hits the fan

Life is short when you're kicking the can

Life is short and then you understand

Life is, life is short

Life is short and you gotta speak

Life is short there's no time to be weak

Life is short you've gotta find what you seek

Life is, life is short

Life is short on the road to hell

Life is short looking down the well

Life is short and you gotta ring the bell

Life is, Life is short

Life is short and there's no going back

Life is short after a heart attack

Life is short, but it sure does stack 

Life is, life is short

Life is short, live it on the run

Life is short whether you're a devil or a nun

Life is short and God holds the gun

Life is, life is short

Life is short

And I wanna be free

Life is short and I wanna find the key

Life is short and that's what's bothering me

Life is, life is short

I had to let it go

 Yes you've got to let it go

With the birds

And the rain

And the wind that doesn't blow

I just had to let it go

All those feelings of sorrow

They hinder, impede

Not what you need

You know

I had to let them go

And I fell to my knees

In the deep grass seed

I cry and I bleed in the snow

Well it's not what I need

And funnel web's greed

I just had to let it go

Oh the clocks went back

I had an attack

Of time don't you know

Well too much of it kills

And not enough can stand still

While under your feet the grass grows

Still I just had to let it go

in a perfect world

 In a perfect world

There'd be no faces behind the glass

There'd be no separation

And all would be free to pass

In a perfect world teeth would stay in the mouth

The birds would not fly south

There'd be time enough to listen

And a right time to die

Oh how the leaves would glisten

After the rain clouds cry

In a perfect world

In a perfect world

We'd be young and strong

And each of us run the marathon

And no stumbling blocks

Or hidden traps

Could make us fall between the gaps

In a perfect world

For you and I

In a perfect world the Jade vase

Would sing outloudly of the hands that made

The Empire that was once waylaid

But now climbs up from the ashen grave

In a perfect world the dragons will fly 

Like red kites across the sky

And we will march under one banner

And all the larch will make for good lumber

And I can be in my manner

And no human being will be merely a number

In a perfect world

For you and I

Love and marriage

 The moon is like a penny

Shining in the 

Dark pocket of the sky

Half of what you want

Like a cradled baby

Hanging

The lawn is like your mother frozen in the dew

Half of

What you 

want

Knowing, always knowing

What the

world is coming to

The dog, I had to mention

Because dogs are like our angels

Or like our cousins

They always turn up, and you must expect them

At inconvenient moments

And a marriage gone wrong

Is like a dog that keeps howling

Because you know

That she/he needs feeding

Love or attention

But you can't quite bring yourself

To tear yourself

Away

From what you are doing

To respond

And so it keeps whinning

Until finally

It runs away in the night

and never comes home

Trundle rhyme

 He is the red island recruit

Of stupid sums occurring

Down the parklands ever burring

From the thistle to the fruit

He is common as a tractor

Outside of a reactor

On the farmland of xfactor

Who grows the unknown brute

And out he comes in fields

Along the hedgeline in search of a meal

In the plethora of woodland

Birds of long pursuit

But what covid flame

Has burned his covid name

Into ponies rump and side

By the river where he cried?

I can only guess at what

Was not spoken but was forgot

In the hours of the chimes

Before the ponies joined the rhyme

And all fairground castles

Are turning, turning pastles

About the necks of doves

Who harmless fly above

love on the rocks

 Well if I had given you more

Would you have walked out the door

Or if I had given you less

Would you have stayed it is anyone's guess

As it was I did enough

Life got hard, then it got tough

But I saw you through the bad days

Like a bright light illumines dark haze

And I sing for everyone sung

When days were long and work never got done

And I sing at the top of my lung

For the yoke was held though we both were free

For the sea swelled and my heart it might burst

For all the love in the world

Lovin' you is the worst

And my voice yelled, well am I not cursed

For lovin' you last means lovin' you first

In Tenby

 I'm in Tenby, I'm in Wales

I'm in the place where reality, breaks down and it

Fails

I'm in a hotel, I'm in an arcade

Can you hear me! I've made a park raid

They're smuggling bottles of Jack Daniels

Across the bridge and Bristol channel

Can you hear me we're in a party

And the only way out of here is art see

I walk the carpet along the corridor

It is dark, and it is tomorrow or

It could be today, but it is 2b

Or not to be, one day more

In Tenby

Life buoy

 They will fleece you in the desert, and fleece you out to sea

They will grease you like a pheasant

Preserved in modernity

They will take without asking

Put you under their control,

But most of all,

Young man, young man

The will take the life from thee

There will be no bones picked or flung

No stone too big

For to be hung

As a mill stone about your neck

Oh, peck, peck you chickens

Peck, until the blood spots fleck

Crow, crow in the morning

Until the sun comes dawning

And you know the day is come

Freedom rises like a star

Look up, look up

You know you are

Lucky to have this

World, this land

This natural sea

Beautiful sand

Come rejoice in the gift of life

And live for 

once so many did sacrifice

Thier own for you to live

In the freedom you have

Live the life you were given

In this earthly paradise 

Twin's birthday

 One day, one day

Two babies were born

From the tummy of their mummy 

Near the holy thorn

And they rolled and they tumbled

Down wearyall hill

And so one grew up with an acrobatic skill

And the other with a sensitive artistic bent

And she made sculptures that's what that meant!

And they both were tied with a mysterious bond

Because they were twin sisters of each other were fond

And soon they brought two babies of their own into the fray

And now and then when they're together Georgia and Elfi will play

And who knows what adventures both will soon be having?

But I know that I love them all, and to know them I am loving!

Happy Birthday Katrina and Tarn!

Penn hill

 Upon Penn hill

Where the pheasant trill

Their startled bagpipe tones

I am alone on cobble stone

Where the bridlepath lays still

Where is the bride? Whose marriage is

It I am running to?

And where is the altar of marathon

Who will be my bride?

Upon Penn hill 

Where the scruffy magic mushroom pickers glean

And hurry and harry the tuffts

That carry their magic bean

And the farmer who sits in his rover and scowls

And the mast's falling over

Because of the owls

The red planets are rolling down pen hill

And a mars bar a day will likely make you ill

The red planets are tumbling

Like bulls down the meadow

Rolling over dozing sheep

There is a war of bells

These red globes collide with churches

Knocking over towers, and school halls

And crushing cars parked in roads

Others swerve out their way

Out their way run the flock, the parishioners, the beadle and the cock

Who crows out his warning in tides of socks

That come falling from the farmer's wife's chest

The mushroom pickers themselves probably think they live on Mars

Wandering around the base of the Microwave tower

Sending them their digital waves, or beaming out to stars

Their mushroom addled brain saves all this as useable power

First they see the footage of the first man on the moon

Then Neil Armstrong is next to them feeding them from a spoon

Saying get better young man America will need you soon

When in reality they are in a Mendip field on a Saturday afternoon

Then suddenly a pheasant beater is perched upon a wall

Calling to his pheasant shooters with his favourite border collie

And as you jog the trees they toggle, in a sense they freeze

And rocks and salt all fill your throat with words you cannot say

And daleks from Mars remind you of those heady summer days

When all this dust, was just like lust, that fades into moon haze

And I can hardly hold it, the weight of boulders up the valley

The weight of feathers waiting to be exploded

By the shot-guns held in shoulders, or cradled in the arms

Of rich and upper class tories who love to tell their stories

Of how they shot down Mars with one moon shot

And wiped out the disease of the red spot

When really the virus like the pheasants came from

Jupiter instead

And Io was with Europa looking on shaking her head

Son of mine

 You can climb the highest peak

You need not ask when you may speak

You are ready and doing fine

Son of mine

Son of mine you dig coal

Down in the pits of your soul

Where the devils battle daily

For their meal

They do the deal with you,

Yes they'd steal

Your very heart so you can't feel

But don't let them take control

Hold your line

Oh son of mine

Son of mine you need not ask

Who is real and who wears a mask

Take yours off let yourself reveal

Your true face to the sunshine

Son of mine

I know you battle with alcohol

And all those demons who'd claim your soul

But do not fall into their snares anymore

The path is long, the road is narrow

With many traps to fall into shadow

But stay the course, you must stay true

To the good force inside of you

Until it brings you out into light

My sunshine

Oh son of mine

You have gambled

And you have lost

Everything you own on a single toss

But you can know you're not alone

We are all just flesh and bone

Now you are ready, and doing fine

Oh my son,

Son of mine

Love is a numbers game

 I love you, I love you to five decimal places,

no I love you to PI recurring

And every iteration of your natural number

Gets my mathematical motor purring

I love your noughts and ones baby

I love your threes and eights

And I'm at sixes and sevens over your legs eleven

And that neatly brings us up to date

And what will be the date when I define your PI?

What slice may I take?

How can they say our love is pi in the sky

When it's a matter of the numbers you make

And I've cooked the books, no look

I've done my sums and the simple truth is

They've added up wrong

I love you baby so strong

Like a towering line graph

Like a frequency diagram

Like the calculus of knowing

You can square my circle

In radians of becoming

And polar co-ordinates

But there is one number that adds up to two

That's when you love me baby

Like I love you

Covid carol

 Talking of the sacrifices that we made during the covid serenade

When death danced amongst our ranks

And gulls called about our flanks

The army of the nation marched on

Talking of the penniless arcades, where jingle bells played

And all the Christmas tinsel displayed

But then there was no-one left

To share it with - two into one

Talking of the typos left at the printers that cut out all our vowels

Like a samurai cuts out his own bowels

In the final act of hari-kari

Well I ordered an uber taxi and stayed

Well out the way

Of love or death and taxes

Ever-after

Perhaps

If there were a case of him versus me

The God of Him would win the

War against the 'Me' disease

But we are all so sure that

some cure will be discovered

That we never took precautions

To ensure

Our own egos

Were covered

And the personal personality insurance went broke

After they gambled all their

Winnings on some private joke

That went up in smoke

Or fell flat on its face but it

Was even funnier that way than saving the

Whole human race

And I thought that I owed her a family

At least

I thought I could own her

I'd be her hairy beast

And protect her from the wild woods

But it did not work, it all ceased

Just as the rain is too beautiful

To Cut the shoulders of sheep

Who graze long after we've stopped

Talking of covid

And tunnels that never cease

Where we look for the light

But darkness is a comfort

And too much light is blinding

And I can only tell

What my shades are finding

Volatile vol-au-vents

 Volatile vol-au-vents

On bathroom tiled floors

Corners, and mourners outside coroner's doors

Closing time at funeral parlours

Where the dead are called

To rent out a coffin for the morning

By that afternoon

All death taxes will have been paid

But I thought I was a European corpse

One said

I answered

Brexit has effected us all my dear

Now at least you'll know your burial

In a church yard will be safe

From the common agricultural policy

And no more shall the other world be mapped

To four decimal places

And there will never again be a corner of a 

Foreign field that is forever England

Yesterday Girl

 I tried to call you Sarah, tried to call you

Yesterday, yesterday girl

Tomorrow is a land we can forget regret in

we can sip the sweet cup of grace

And heaven stepping in 

To demand space

For healing

They cut the drug, and share across

The mirror of this reality

Cut time into pills

You may swallow each day

Say

Don't bite off more than you can chew

And I call you Tuesday

Mrs Wednesday

Mother Thursday

Brother Friday

Like the monk

That I've become

Mum is the word

Nobody says

In our vows of silence

And forced forgetting

It's a self-inflicted violence

Against memories

Than stirs and stain

Like tanning of the leather brain

Folded in and on itself

And in each shelf

A book of time is stored

In the cerebral library

But in dementia, the librarian

Has gone mad

Is destroying volumes

Like evidence

Before the Nazis come

To accuse him

Of conspiracy, or herasy

Or speaking his mind

He knows the castle cannot keep

The monastery's library

And it cannot save

These treasures from time's ravages

And the revolution

That makes books obsolete

And turns the leaf of history

Into garbage on the street

And in what dignity is left to him

In self -determination

Before the mind-controllers take control

He sets a conflagration in the heart of the library

In the nerve centre of his soul

Until all knowledge of his life and love

Is lost in obliteration

And the total annihilation

Of his word capital

Until feeling is like a serpent

Swimming in a deep primordial bowl

Making monosyllabic lurchings

For meaning in its soul

And almost reaching expression

Of the reptillian mind

When finally all functioning ceases

Back into the husks we find

French Toast

Cows drop in the shucks

Flies blacken out the books

Matches light the fire

Under bushes of thorn

The parson passes hours

Handing out the flowers

Like prayers around the houses

But he still ties his boot

The time is like twine wound

Clocks go round and round

Minutes of the rainfall

Entered in the log of crooks

Meetings undercover

And above their lovers

Fall over in the fallen rain

Trying to get cute

Chosen cheeses tumble

From the turnstile table

Baroque and broken Rococco

Furniture lay in pieces

Breadcrumbs of the madams

Leaving trails for Hansel

And Gretel to come wandering

To the house of ill repute

Every ant will wire

A message to their mother

In code between the covers

They know no one can shoot

Chambermaids go hungry

Next to pigs potbellies

Freedom wears an iron mask

No questions can be asked

By the red army recruit

I hold you in decision

Of a natural derision

Open courts are far from

Penny worth arcades

Z cars make the freeway

Superstars on the highway

While singing bums sing myway

Out beyond the Christmas Parade

And St Patrick is in his tower 

struddling some snakes

For their only mistake

Was to justify their God

Dogs howl in the moonlight

Inside the garden of paradise

She is free from fire

And I am free from ice

If you see them coming,

You better ask for the magazine

They will shoot your picture

And leave your soul outside

The fruits of harbour waiver

Inside the semiquaver

Struck up upon a drum

Of black mirrors to the sun

And every hawk is heard

To cry in human words

The needs so babies come

Across the image

Of the one

Beebobanian

 Clock towers toll

On St Thomas's street

And the road of robbers

And the northern beat

And the rained on feet

And our scuffed souls

And shoes like rubber dummy controls

Who check our haste and fasten

Our foals

To the evening rains of a field

so dole

Out the laughs spoon up the gags

Let me hear them calling

For the last rags

Which report in dishwater type

Of crooning nags

And billowing bags

That blow from West to East

That hairy beast is howling still

In the moonlight of a window sill

And coming through the stamens teeth

Which grind in a dual mouth-breach

So he tells you once, he tells you twice

He is the Bird of paradise

Oh Beebobanian dog

With the banana body

Just the size of a mouse

Who says NaNa and slobbers rainbows

How is it that your garden still grows?

Coming up steady, coming up strong

From the heady reaches of a Red Babylon

The Red planet's dust in your paws

That you shake off, emerging in the breath he draws

Of that sweet Australian Sun

He drops like a grey hound

And away you run

House Call

 Give me all the dust and sewer waste

Give me the lust and screw her haste

And copy and paste her face

From one to another keeping chaste

And keeping mum

Keeping shtoom 

All in the bank vault in 

The corner of her room

And grace is saved

But I ask by whom?

And who can lace

The cocktail broom

With tears on her face

After a call on zoom

And a lover's disgrace

And a girl named doom

The colours trace

The rainbow's tomb

That end in a place

Like a golden loom

Unravelled replaced

The sun unpacks the moon

In shards which chase

A diamond's gloom

What in the world?

 The berries are bobbing on the rowan tree

The corn is cobbing, in the sweet acre breeze

And I am jobbing like a busy bee

But the parishioners all hold their tissues and sneeze

Oh what, what are we coming to?

What in the world is it coming to?

The flames are fanned, and the Earth's down the pan

And another horse passes on a Japanese fan

There's a statue that's a fallin'

A Greek vase is appallin'

Hiding from Apollo's gaze

Who wanders through the fallow glades

Thinking of him and looking for you

Oh what in the world are we coming to?

And the jumbo in the air is stallin'

In the sirens with long hair are callin'

Take me once, they say, take my cue

What in the world are we coming to?

I hold my breath and count to ten

But I'm afraid to open my mouth again

And if I see pigsties or sheep pens

I close my eyes and count my hens

The farm yard is all accounted true

Yet what in the world is it coming to?

And we all look lost in a maze

The shallow sharks, swim in the misty haze

And jellyfish sting, on the holidays

We all forgot were once sacred

It makes you think it's the end of days

With famine and pestilence and malaise

And summer time screams its short serenades

As the musicians all pack up their parades

What in the world are we coming to?

What in the world is it coming to?

When you hold out your hands

Then bring them together in praise

Some people leave you, and it's the pain that stays

Truffle hunting

 The dogs are like my mistresses

So mysterious and dark

And they fall like shadows ministries

As the dogs will lose their bark

And fallow land of signatories

Welcomed in the park

I call you Kate

You take me late

Into the foaming spark

Smothered in apostrophies, and epiphanies that are

Cheering as in race horse stands

Where Greyhounds battle hares

And calligraphic letters

fall

Under bed steads

Some say a name to me

And the roses turn their heads

I listen to her heart beat

I call the telephone

And failing this, I am amiss

And wish just to go home

There once was a life of surfing

And one of quarrel road

Where quarries quaked with hard rock cakes

Trapped between sea and stone

And chattering fish in calesthenics

bite of more than they can chew

And it all rolls under the waves which wash

Over me and you

Can you hear their barking,

These dogs that howl and pone

In pow-wow smoke signal talk

Whispers on the bone

And blankets that could smother

Instead lift and hone

Our eyes from blinking tears of onions

Or guests we've never known

Crying in the disco,

In the retro lounge

Tears fill the piss bowl

And turn the white milk sour

The dogs are barking at the crow

And in a hedge the fox does cower

While men upon electricity pylons

Turn on and off the power

I should welcome this and that

I should suck and hack

But the cough sweet I chew on

Is like a lyre heard true

The fences now are flaking

The towers crumble down

And sounds which are heard

Down the street are only the dogs

now

Don't look now

 Don't look now,

But the street is far behind

We have left mother earth

And are in space you'll find

Its a long way down there

For you and all mankind

Just be glad you have found her

As eternity is a bind

The quarantine is over,

Now its back again

In and out of cages

Faster than round the bend

Its a murderous intention

An itch I have to scratch

To find the key holders pocket

And each hour check the watch

What can we be if not trees

Letting down our vines

The leaves will fall also so free

As Autumn finds her climes

And accommodates us in her bosom

Mother nature's nest

I've been let down

The planet's sold

And I must find my rest

I take stock of the photographs

And handle table legs

The varnished slides and phonographs

Of times of broken eggs

And if I dropped the juggling balls

It was because I saw her beg

And the ghost of her came through the wall

On a thousand China pegs